Dismemberment Plan "Uncanney Valley" (Oct. 15, 2013)

new album thread

"waiting" : http://waiting.dismembermentplan.com/

i think i like it? it's not 'dismemberment plan by the numbers' which is a good sign

by that i mean it doesn't sound specifically like something that would fit right on any of their old albums

kind of wary of the album in general since i didn't like 'change' that much and aspects of their sound haven't aged well but i will try to remain optimistic

sounds like maroon 5 :(

sounds like the fucking barenaked ladies

have you guys not heard dismemberment plans song before

also have i never written words before

i was sorta thinking the vampire weekend of another lifetime

i'm excited about this album in theory. I willed myself into liking Travistan for a good year and a half before i had to admit it wasn't very good, so the bar for my enjoyment is low.

Not listened.
If it's anything like 'Change', it's a winner for me.
Shit, I just listened...

The songs they were playing last year sounded good, liked TM's solo albums more than most, will prob enjoy this although I have no expectations after a band goes away this long. Have only listened to the new song on the phone hotline so far, because it makes me nostalgic for TMBG's dial-a-song.

this is not a jam

:/

i feel like the single from Travis's new band The Burlies might be better than anything on Uncanney Valley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ChgWy9TLk

too afraid to listen to the new D-Plan, esp if the preview tracks were anything to go by. That Burlies track is pretty cool, though.

the 2nd half of the album is way better than the 1st imo, worth sticking it out

Are they really spelling it Uncanney? One of them's an English teacher.

the 2nd half of the album is way better than the 1st imo, worth sticking it out

that's true, isn't it. it's also definitely a grower, as opposed to a shower.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/44941/the-dismemberment-plan-on-reuniting/

Cover story interview

On first listen, this isn't that good. Too much in the midtempo "Change" mode.

I still like "Waiting" a lot though, which everyone else seemed to hate, so maybe it's just me.

haha nick do you really not get the joke of spelling it "uncanney"?

i think travis said it was just a random typo but maybe he was bullshitting

i think this album is good... for a d plan comeback album i think it's perfectly enjoyable and doesn't really need to be much more than that

great sarge interview, although it was kind of hysterical to have a pitchfork score be a focal point of a spin interview: http://www.spin.com/articles/dismemberment-plan-travis-morrison-uncanney-valley-interview/

thanks and yeah we talked about that... i decided to ask that question just for the hell of it but it ended up being one of the more lucid answers he gave so we just went with it

lol yeah no i get it. i genuinely hope that's the only time i see an artist asked to put a number on their own record, though.

i love travistan and change and imo this feels really tossed-off in comparison, and not in a good way

I liked "Lookin'" on first blush for having some kick, but it's so long for no reason and there are lyrics like

"Oh, I'm lucky that you love me/ cuz my luck is not that great/ and you seem to be made of horseshoes/ it's like you're blessed by fate"

i wouldn't be surprised if a good number of these songs work live, where you can't focus on shit like that

aside from "invisible" and maybe "daddy was a real good dancer" i think the best stuff on this album is the jammiest ("let's just go to the dogs tonight" especially)

I agree that the back half is better than the front, but there's not much I find exciting about this. And I liked Change quite a bit, too -- even the mellow, midtempo songs on that album have some sharp features (spiky, jazzy guitars, busy rhythms) that seem in short supply here.

Totally, I just wish it jammed more. Like, I get people finding Change too middling, or Travistan too obnoxious, but you can hear some real care and effort there. If the lyrics are going to be relatively tossed off, the music should fucking blast, and if the music's going to be relatively soft and predictable, there should be some words to chew on.

("let's just go to the dogs tonight" especially)

This song is very much in the vein of previous album closers "Back and Forth" and "Ellen and Ben," but I've honestly never dug their straightforward hand-waving, sing-along stuff.

it really doesn't do "dogs" any benefit to mention those songs. comparatively it sounds like a demo.

oddly this album makes me think of Weezer's Make Believe, which similarly felt so dopey and tepid, if familiar.

it really doesn't do "dogs" any benefit to mention those songs. comparatively it sounds like a demo.

― da croupier, Friday, October 18, 2013 12:14 AM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark

well yeah. duh. but that jammy guitar outro of "dogs" might be my fav part of this record.

funny thing is i hate the pitchfork review and most, for shit like All over Uncanney Valley, Morrison—once one of indie rock's most incisive, identifiable lyricists—cracks wise, veers off erratically, shoehorns in dated slang or beside-the-point chanting. I mean, I WISH there was more wisecracking, erratic veers, dated slang, and beside the point chanting. there used to be MORE.

these songs definitely sounded better live when they started playing them last year, there's some punch lacking here even when you set aside that they're not trying to rock hard or anything.

i don't wanna come off like "old school fan generation gap guy" but i definitely get the impression that a lot of the reaction to the record is based purely off of their last 2 albums, in particular the fanbase that might consider "The City" or "Face of the Earth" to be the band's defining songs. not that this album sounds much like Is Terrified, but lyrically it's certainly going back to a little more of that early wackiness that's being treated almost like a distasteful new development.

yeah i'm always baffled when critics complain about their goofiness like they haven't been goofy from the get-go. When I caught part of a set in '99, I was basically repulsed by what dorks they looked like. The drummer wearing gloves, the bassist doing this little march-in-place, travis dancing around while the kids up front did a synchronized dance to the chorus of "what do you want me to say." It was a real "OMG nobody told me these were sting-worshipping dweebs" moment it took me a year or two to get past.

i had a very quick turnaround from absolutely hating this on first listen to really liking it after maybe 3 or 4. i credit my initial disappointment that it isn't what i hoped it would be and the swift realization that it is pretty much exactly what i should've expected it to be. getting over that hang up, plus becoming somewhat desensitized by familiarity to the often truly terrible lyrics, has allowed me to appreciate the good stuff here, of which there is plenty. i came to the same conclusion as some dude that it has more in common with records 1 and 2 than 3 and 4. the thread of fun that runs through their records, but was increasingly obscured as they progressed, is brought to the front. meanwhile travis seems to have for the most part outgrown the self-pity that came to dominate things, and it's maybe not surprising that 'invisible' is the most d-plan sounding song on the new one. to be clear, i was 100% down with the self pity stuff, i love both e&i and change front to back. but i'm okay with having more fun too. 2 thumbs up from me. last parting shot at the lyrics tho, so so bad.

http://decanting-cerebral.tumblr.com/post/64869458052/listening-notes-ultra-brief-pt-106

I love the review of Uncanney Valley in this point - it's totally on-point about the oddity of critics acting betrayed by their dorkitude, but slips in "pretty impressive if you pretend they're an unknown combo on open mic night!" re: the music.

in this post, rather

http://thequietus.com/articles/13727-the-dismemberment-plan-uncanney-valley-review

otm about the rhythm section's relative drop from focus being a detriment

i dunno why they did the record with J. Robbins but not Chad Clark, shoulda gotten the whole studio team from the old days in on it.

more like dismomberment plan (moms like them)

dismomberment placenta

misnomberment slams